This journal issue focuses on insiders and outsiders in Appalachia, the mixing of cultures, and the diversity of the region. The lead article mixes memoir with analysis of the importance of home and homeplace to people from the Appalachians, many of whom are forced to leave permanently in search of work. A second article considers the strange…

An atypical and challenging writing assignment for courses in general or abnormal psychology is to ask the students to write a poem about the experience of mental illness. The format, length, and topic are left entirely up to the student. While shocked at first, students rose to the challenge after being told they would be judged on content and…

Because so little research has been conducted on methods of teaching literature, two separate but related studies were conducted to (1) examine what it means to understand stable irony, and (2) to compare two methods, direct and tacit, of teaching stable irony. A 36-item test, comprised of questions about 7 ironic poems and 2 nonironic poems,…

The (CBS Radio) Columbia Workshop, formed in 1936, encouraged the writing and production of creative, non-traditional radio drama such as Archibald MacLeish's verse play "The Fall of the City," which aired on April 11, 1937. MacLeish considered radio the ideal medium for poetry because it offers only aural stimuli without competition…

The classroom activities suggested in this resource booklet, proven successful by South Dakota poet Jack Kreitzer, are designed to spark or increase students' creativity by bringing the exciting language of poetry alive in the elementary and secondary classroom. Introductory comments present thoughts on what poetry is and how it should be taught,…

This book was designed to supply information on available resources in Australian children's literature and a tradition of teaching which incorporates the Australian experience in an inclusive manner. Essays and their authors consist of the following: (1) "Children's Books in Australia: Two Hundred Years of Social Life" (Maurice Saxby);…

The feature articles in this journal issue deal with various aspects of Canadian literature. The articles include: (1) a discussion of who's who and what's what in Canadian literature; (2) reviews of worthwhile but overlooked Canadian children's literature; (3) a list of resource guides to Canadian literature and a short quiz over famous first…

The persona Robert Frost communicated to most of his wide, diverse, and often non-academic audience was that of a rather isolated New England farmer, who--because of his limited experience with city folk and urban living--was untouched and thereby uncorrupted by the ways of the world. In teaching Frost, as in teaching any poet, some sort of…

This survey drew on a variety of national surveys and book industry publication and sales statistics to examine the number and kinds of people reading fiction, poetry, and drama. The survey used data from three different national surveys of readers conducted in the mid-1980s and including over 30,000 subjects to conclude that while literature…

Focused on the topic of poetry-writing instruction, this annotated bibliography contains 29 references of articles and papers in the ERIC database. The citations include articles discussing poetic forms, teaching strategies for elementary and secondary levels, and computer-assisted poetry-writing instruction. (MM)

Although many teachers force-feed the "meaning" of poetry to puzzled students or teach poetry by way of dissecting poetic techniques, more productive approaches to the study of poetry exist, as reflected in the literature in the ERIC database. Units of study can be organized around particular kinds of inquiry instead of around a literary…

This collection of poems, short fiction, and essays on teaching writing, 25 pieces in all, are personal reflections and excerpts from the work of writers and writing teachers. These works, reflecting diverse approaches to teaching, are intended to help writers with what and how they write and what and how they teach. (MS)

A study examined whether intraceptive thinkers (those with a relatively complex and differentiated set of concepts for thinking about people) are more likely than projective thinkers (those who tend to think in simple stereotypes, and are biased and judgmental) to see the subtle religious themes in the poetry of Walt Whitman. Ninety-six male…

Philosophers and poets from classical times to the present have argued that playful and amiable discourse are conducive to teaching and learning. The play principle enhances reading and study and should be applied by teachers to benefit their students. Teachers should help their students see that it is fun to enliven the imagination with good…

A total of 169 college students participated in two experiments investigating the effects of eight instructional sequences and the presence of a heuristic rule in the teaching of four coordinate concepts: trochaic, iambic, dactylic, and anapestic poetic meters. A four-factor experimental design was used: pure simultaneous or sequential…